"Last night was a night I shall not forget," says Macy at the fest on Saturday. "I didn't want to direct for many years, because secretly, I didn't feel up to the task. It's an organizational nightmare, and that's not my strong suit."

What changed? "I'm in the third act of this career and felt to a certain extent that I was spinning my wheels," he says. "I'm not getting the roles that are scintillating or challenging. It's either give up, start planning my retirement in earnest, or find something else to do. So I thought, what the hell?"

Rudderless is the story of a successful, cocky ad executive, Sam (Billy Crudup) left reeling after his son dies in a college school shooting. The film careens from the tragic shooting to two years later, finding Sam a scruffy social outcast who now lives on his sailboat and paints homes in relative solace.

"In the situation of a school shooting, the most unlikely person to tell the story is the father. He carries with him a presumed guilt," says Macy. "Men don't reach out, they go into themselves."

It's when Sam begins listening to his dead son's music that he feels their connective tissue, and at the encouragement of a local teen (Anton Yelchin), Sam forms an unlikely band, and revives his son's music onstage at a local pub.

Rudderless smacks of realism in a week that saw shootings in both South Carolina and Maryland.

"I'm alarmed," says Macy. "I don't know what's going on. I don't know where all this rage is coming from. More to the point, how can we stop this, what can we do?"

"It's a ludicrous notion to arm everyone in schools," he adds. "Anyone who says the answer is more guns is just an idiot. The mental health care system is overtaxed. Perhaps with the Affordable Care Act, maybe we can get help for people. Maybe."

Right now, a distribution deal for Rudderless is looming. "Any day," says Macy, happy that his directorial debut will "see the light of day" in theaters.

But who does he really thank? His wife, Felicity Huffman (who also stars in the film as Sam's ex-wife).

"I owe her and my two daughters a huge debt of gratitude, because I lost my (crap) a couple of times on this thing," he says. "The pressure is unbelievable and I was not prepared for it - and I've been in high pressure situations before."

As a director, he adds, "You look behind you and there's no one there. It's you."